Survey Finds Trust Growing in Business Over Government

1/28/2014 6:32PM

Richard Edelman, head of Edelman PR, talks with WSJ's Rebecca Blumenstein about his impressions from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the findings of Edelman's annual trust survey, which finds eroding confidence in government and a resistance toward brands from China and other emerging nations.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... I the scene with The Wall Street Journal in here today is Richard Edelman ... from Edelman PR world wide thank you for joining us for sure thanks for having me ... I saw you in Davos and wanted to be sure to grab you before it ... before too much time is past to get your impressions of this year's events it was a was a wee years Davos than that ... there are themes all over the place the perhaps no one coherent message ... well it to me it was the geopolitical Davos you know in comparison to prior years and was all about economics ... this was all about ... you know who ran in Israel or China and Japan and nothing about whether the EU bailout is actually can work so the big difference too ... there was this more optimism in the air than people that felt so long I have to say with emerging markets and ... to some of this phase of the past couple days a week ... perhaps I Whale readied to the optimism of Davos being a bit too heavy in that sense well for the first time in five years to develop markets are going to do better than developing markets China seems to be pulling away from all the rest the sausage thing is the BRICs anymore it's actually ... the seats come for China ... um and so therefore ... I'm it's a different game plan for a business person to be ... rectified that SU is today a survey about trust of what we're finding was both in the U S and globally well the big finding is the incredible demise of government this year I'm in United States dropped sixteen points and trust the biggest ever gap between trust in business and trust in government twenty one points in the US ... yet ... I for one margin people still want more regulation of financial services the food industry the energy industry's owners to somehow ... be no memory of the handover of two thousand ate ... so ... we think actually that business has to step forward ... and fill the role of government in a sense as the change ... explain ... that to you to create a context in which you can visit the ... what is it that every on the eve of the stated the Union address tonight aam piercing similar ... similar findings in other polls um what sort of the challenges the president have is there any way for him to ... say really rectify the situation reveals fast ... why he didn't resin actually has to be very can chew ninety cubic machinery he has to say ... look we've got Healthcare dot Gov working ... you we are committed to manufacturing were committed to an energy policy it's about growth he's not Guinea get credibility backed by ... air ... he has to really be a balance on three or four things it can be achieved in the next year infrastructure things like that ... now did I Americans feeling I'm confident this is what's the opinion of business any business is not always been seen as ... as as a positive change agent ... well this is actually use some relatively pretty high ... um but it's the CEOs are very low which is kind of shocking inner CEO Truss was terrible two thousand and two thousand and recovered somewhat but now flattened out ... and so we refuse to actually improve the reputation of Cumbria leaders dragging down and partly it's because they've got ... a totally eye contact with the median others in the last three or four years I think it's a big mistake CEO's if you want sell her story ... this is the Teddy Roosevelt coin believe that it is that you represent a lot of CEOs that something that you're advising them that they have to get out more because many of them have been quite ... quite reluctant to do much publicly ... well again if his government leaders are disrespecting near the lowest in terms of trust in our study ... a CEO has to go out and and let others academics person like yourself spread the message that led ... to ... calls for the company follows the leader in as the CEO ... there was CIA study tell you about globalization and American attitudes toward foreign companies that are better ... competing in the U S now ... one of the shocking findings in the human Trust barometer is actually the Chinese brands ... coming into the Western markets has twenty percent trust ... and ... actually only one-third of people in the Gulf markets want the Chinese factory ... want Chinese to leave and invest in companies ... they ... really don't like Chinese Russian do and Mexican plants they feel that it's just ... indicative of a kind of culture and it's not conducive ... to good lifestyle for employees or on environmental stewardship ... so you can so that's fascinating so you really did can pick up on and on a definite inside China anti foreign sentiment in some respects well it's it's less antiforeign um because ... the law of German brands the name of Swedish and Swiss Canadian ... but ... the ... emerging market branch of the real Amcor ... around their ankles to be in the sense of ... distrust been ... as great thank you so much for coming thanks for having ...